Policy gap affects water service delivery - CWSA

Mr Emmanuel Foster Boateng, Brong-Ahafo Regional Director of Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) has listed some of the challenges facing the company as fragmentation of approaches to water service delivery and weak coordination.

Other problems include the gap between policy and practice, and the barriers to the uptake of innovative practices among actors in the sector.

Mr Boateng made the observation at the maiden Regional Learning Alliance Meeting jointly organised by CWSA and Sustainable Services at Scale (Triple-S) Project in Sunyani.

The Learning Alliance Platform seeks to bring together stakeholders in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector t o share experiences of best practices and find a solution to challenges facing the water sector in the Region.

Thirty participants from Ghana Water Company Limited, CWSA, the Media and non-governmental organisations involved in advocacy in the water and sanitation sector in the region attended.

Mr Boateng said in order to achieve sustainable rural water supply and maintenance of proper sanitation to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets and meeting universal coverage by 2015, steps must be taken to address the challenges.

He observed that Ghana had made significant strides in water coverage and has, therefore, been cited among the few countries in Sub-Sahara Africa which are on course to achieve United Nations’ MDGs for water supply by 2015.

Mr Abu Wumbei of Resource Centre Network-Ghana and the main facilitator said stakeholders in the WASH sector in Ghana strive to provide communities with sustainable services.

He said: “An environmental scan carried out by the Triple-S Project under the leadership of CWSA in Brong-Ahafo in 2011 noted weak systems and structures for capturing and sharing of experiences and best practices within the WASH sector.”

He said most of the information in the sector have not been captured or shared whilst the little available are held at individual and organisational levels, making accessibility to the public difficult.

Mr Benjamin Agbemor, Regional Learning Facilitator of the Triple-S Project said the Learning Alliance approach addresses some development challenges including “Uptake of research findings and bringing innovation to scale”.

“Under that approach, stakeholders would be organised into platforms and facilitated in working together on WASH thematic areas, “he added.

Mr Agbemor said the establishment of the platforms at regional and district levels would allow “horizontal communication between different institutions operating at the same institutional level and vertical communication between field experience and the highest levels of policy making”.

He explained that the purpose and other benefits the Regional Level Leaning Alliance Platform would bring is to improve coordination as well as stimulating and facilitating structured dissemination of lessons beyond the membership of the alliance.